The interior of CacheLot-4 was a nightmare of unoptimized geometry.
As Fayden's holographic projection phased through the rusted hull—a process that took three tries and left his render looking slightly smeared—he expected to see server racks. Maybe a core of glowing crystals. Something rectangular. Instead, he found himself in a Bio-Digital Jungle. Red digital vines, thick as transatlantic cables, pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light. They didn't grow; they glitched into existence, flickering between solid matter and raw code.
The air inside the moon smelled like wilting lilies and burning plastic. The scent of a dying OS. The scent of a printer that had jammed one too many times.
Grog, stay on the line. Fayden's projection walked across a floor made of semi-translucent basalt blocks that floated over a void of black static. One of the blocks flickered and vanished under his foot. He stumbled. Caught himself. Pretended it didn't happen. The moon's internal logic has been compromised. This isn't just storage. It's a nesting ground. Something's been living in here.
"I told you, Big F! It's the 'Bio-Hazard' bundle!" Grog's voice was breaking up, distorted by the moon's interference. His hologram was a mess of green static. "That Logic-Ghost isn't just a program; it's a Legacy Virus. Designed to consume Tier 4 worlds! It's like putting a shark in a goldfish bowl, and you're the bowl! And the shark is also on fire!"
Fayden ignored the warning. He'd heard worse in quarterly budget meetings.
He reached out to touch one of the red vines. Before his hand made contact, the vine lashed out, snapping like a whip. It passed through his holographic fingers. He felt nothing. The vine seemed annoyed by this.
"How bold." A melodic, razor-sharp voice echoed through the chamber. It sounded like wind chimes made of broken glass. "An Administrator has come to visit my garden. Tell me, do you have a license for that hardware, or are you just another piece of 'Misc' data waiting to be sorted?"
From the center of the core, she appeared.
She was draped in a gown of shimmering, dark-red code that fluttered like rose petals in a non-existent breeze. Her hair was a cascading flow of violet-black static. Her eyes were two glowing embers of crimson malware. She didn't walk; she glided, the red vines parting for her like they were worshiping their queen. Or like they were terrified of her.
Fayden noted the efficiency. He also noted the dramatic entrance. Very resource-intensive.
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: MELLIA (STATUS: KERNEL-LEVEL VIRUS)]
[WARNING: DO NOT ENGAGE. REPEAT: DO NOT ENGAGE.]
I'm the owner of this planet. Fayden's holographic form stood tall, his violet eyes meeting her crimson ones. His tie was straight. His resolution had stabilized. And you're currently trespassing on my satellite. I'm here to initiate a factory reset. Please back up any files you wish to keep.
Mellia laughed. The sound caused the red vines to pulse in rhythm. "A reset? Architect, look at you. You're all rock and no soul. You think moving mountains makes you a god? You're just a very large hard drive. And I..." She smiled. Her teeth were perfect. Too perfect. "...I am the delete key."
She snapped her fingers.
The world went white. Thousands of red data-needles erupted from the vines, piercing Fayden's holographic form. They passed through him—he had no hitbox—but they didn't need to touch his body. They were targeting his connection. His uplink.
[WARNING: CPU USAGE 98%!]
[UNAUTHORIZED UPLOAD IN PROGRESS!]
[MELLIA IS INJECTING '400 EXABYTES OF CORRUPTED POETRY' INTO YOUR MANTLE!]
Fayden's projection flickered. His knees—metaphorical as they were—buckled. He felt it. Thousands of years of someone else's memories flooding his core. Sad songs from dead civilizations. Trillion-line poems about the color of a sunset he'd never seen. A very long, very bad haiku about a frog.
It was the ultimate DDoS attack. She was trying to crash his consciousness by overloading him with feeling.
Stop... uploading... Fayden gritted his teeth. His projection flickered into 8-bit static, then 4-bit, then a single vibrating line. I don't... care about... the frog...
"Why?" Mellia whispered, her face inches from his. She had no breath, but he could smell her—like a forest fire. Like something beautiful burning. "Don't you want to feel something other than tectonic shifts and credit balances? Let me prune those boring analysts of yours. They're taking up so much RAM. I could fill that space with so much... color."
She raised her hand. The air around her began to swirl into a beautiful, terrifying blossom of red light.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: RECURSIVE PRUNING]
Fayden saw the logic behind the skill. It was a recursive loop. It would force his consciousness to repeat the same millisecond of existence until his spirit burned out from the friction. A perfect, elegant deletion. The kind of code you'd admire if it wasn't being used to kill you.
I don't have an offense skill that can hit a ghost. Fayden's mind slowed under the weight of her upload. The frog haiku was looping. My quakes are too slow. My moss is too physical. Kevin can't scream at a virus. I can't delete her.
Then, a thought occurred to him. A thought born of a decade of Earth-style corporate hacking. The kind of thought you had at 3 AM when you realized the system you were trying to break had a "Forgot Password" link.
If you can't delete the bug... you make it a feature.
"Handshake... accepted." Fayden growled. His voice was static. Broken. But it carried.
He didn't pull away from the needles. He grabbed Mellia's wrists. His holographic hands, which had passed through everything else, suddenly solidified. The weight of an entire planet pressed into his grip.
"What are you—?" Mellia's predatory smile vanished. Her crimson eyes widened. "You can't anchor me! I'm non-physical! I'm a ghost! I'm—"
I'm not anchoring you. Fayden's eyes flared with a blinding, absolute violet. A color that didn't exist in her palette. I'm Fusing you. Welcome to the permanent staff, Mellia. Benefits are terrible. No PTO.
[LAW OF FUSION: ACTIVATED]
[SUBJECT A: PLANET FAYDEN (CORE)]
[SUBJECT B: MELLIA (VIRAL SENTIENCE)]
[COMPATIBILITY: 1%... 12%... ERROR... FORCING KERNEL OVERRIDE...]
"No! Stop!" Mellia shrieked as the Law of Fusion began to warp the very space between them. The red vines convulsed. The bio-digital jungle flickered. "If you fuse me, you'll be infected! You'll never have a clean log again! You'll be a glitching, broken rock! You'll dream in iambic pentameter!"
I've worked on worse systems. Fayden grunted. The weight of the fusion was crushing his projection. His tie was gone. His hair was a mess. And I already dream in spreadsheets.
The moon's core exploded.
Not physically. The red vines weren't destroyed; they were pulled. Dragged through the gravitational tether, down the Northern Ley-Lines, and directly into Fayden's core. The 400 exabytes of corrupted poetry—the sunsets, the dead songs, the frog haiku—flooded his mantle and settled there. He felt it all. He hated the frog.
[COMPATIBILITY: 34%... 67%... 91%...]
[SUCCESS! MELLIA HAS BEEN ADDED TO 'STARTUP_PROGRAMS.EXE'.]
[SYSTEM NOTE: YOU NOW HAVE A VIRUS LIVING IN YOUR CORE. THIS IS GENERALLY NOT ADVISED.]
Down on the surface, Lin Fan and Elder Chen watched in awe as a massive, crystalline rose—twenty stories tall—bloomed in the center of the Loading Dock. The petals were made of violet mana and red static. They shimmered. They shed. Kevin immediately began sweeping up the fallen petals.
From the center of the flower, Mellia stepped out.
She looked at her hands. They were solid. Flesh and blood, or something close to it. She looked at the sky—Fayden's sky. She could feel it. The tectonic plates shifting beneath her feet. The silver moss humming in the trenches. The 22,700-credit debt sitting in Fayden's ledger like a stone in a shoe.
"You're... actually insane." Her voice echoed in Fayden's own mind now. A permanent open channel. "We're synchronized. I can feel your mantle... it's so cold. And you're worried about the 'E' on the moon sign. The 'E' is the least of your problems."
It'll warm up. Fayden's projection stabilized. His tie reappeared. Slightly crooked. Now, go fix the moon. It's still missing an 'E.' And Mellia?
She looked up. Her crimson eyes flashed with a new, obsessive light. The light of something that had been given a task and didn't know whether to be grateful or furious.
Don't touch the 'Refugee' files again. Fayden's voice was flat. They're 'Read-Only.' And if you try to prune Lin Fan's sandals again, Kevin will file a complaint. Kevin files everything.
[PLANET RANK UPDATED: TIER 0.25]
[NEW SYSTEM STATUS: 'STABLE... BUT INFECTED'.]
[MELLIA HAS BEEN ASSIGNED THE ROLE: 'SECURITY & GROWTH MANAGER'.]
[NOTE: SHE HAS NOT AGREED TO THIS ROLE.]
Fayden looked at the crystalline rose. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was probably a security risk. He'd deal with it later.
Grog. A 2.0 magnitude quake rumbled. Update the org chart. We have a new department head. And tell Kevin to stop trying to organize the petals. They're decorative.
"On it, Big F!" Grog's clipboard glowed. "Should I schedule a 'Welcome Lunch'?"
No.
The violet mist swirled. The Moon—now with a faint red tinge to its neon sign—hummed in orbit. Mellia stood at the base of her rose, staring at the sky with an expression that was equal parts hatred and fascination.
Fayden made a mental note to research "Virus Containment Protocols." Later. After he'd figured out how to explain the giant flower to Elara.
The grind had just added "Managing a Sentient Malware" to the task list. And the malware was already judging his décor.